Here I Stand
by Lusky
Summary: The events that took place in the confines of the Academy at Pangaea from four years prior to Arthur Kirkland's arrival, and how they shaped Konstantin Asenov from an impulsive, peculiar boy into the embodiment of the project's purposes. Gakuen AU, prequel to Corrupt Circle. On extended hiatus until further notice.


**Version 1.1, 24/04/13: Minor edits made, story to go on an indefinite hiatus.**

A/N: Hello there! One or two of you might have noticed that this is, debatably, a re-upload. Actually, I've entirely overhauled my original first chapter of the story, and am no longer using it to compete in NaNoWriMo. There's a couple of reasons for this – one, the original first involved too many human original characters, and though at the time I had reasonings behind them, I felt like they'd be a turn-off for many potential readers. Two, despite the fact that with this rewrite I'm now breaking the fanfic law of 'show, don't tell', I didn't want to beat around the bush with excessive backstory that, like I said in point one, would have involved several original human characters. That, and with me not being from the country I was writing about, I genuinely wasn't confident enough in what I'd actually written.

Alright, with that cleared up, onto the revised story. This is a mini-prequel to my current novel, Corrupt Circle. When I say it is a 'mini-prequel', I mean that it is primarily a character study, as opposed to Corrupt Circle itself, which is plot-driven. Please note that whilst it is not mandatory that you read Corrupt Circle beforehand, it may help explain a few of the concepts better. Despite this being a prequel, it is a supporting side-story, and hence that may leave some of you in the dark if you're not already familiar with the main story. Likewise, is reading this story first going to ruin some of the surprises in Corrupt Circle? It's really up to you which order you read them in. Both are works in progress, and I'll be juggling the two until further notice.

As a character study (however loosely you want to consider that term), the story is going to be focused on Bulgaria, as his backstory was what was voted for in a poll I conducted. It's probably worth noting now that I take a lot of creative liberty with his character, him being relatively undeveloped in canon. If this is a problem, please save yourself the trouble and hit the back button. Additionally, though Romania is listed as the secondary character, he won't be appearing for quite some time. Likewise, neither will the listed characters of Corrupt Circle – England and Belgium – be appearing until much later on, either. However, judging by the reviews on Corrupt Circle, you guys really like the Serbia OC I use. So, there'll be plenty of him instead!

Pairings, you ask? **BulgariaxFYRMacedoniaxSerbia **is probably going to feature more strongly in this story, as opposed to the main project. Though I will warn for **Bulgaria/Romania **being hinted at later on. As with Corrupt Circle, though, I'll stress that romance is not the driving force of the series. The other side pairs, **Denmark/Norway **and **CzechiaxSlovakia **will be at least referenced. There are headcanons and OC nations aplenty in this fic, as well as OC depictions of existing canon nations (not to replace them, but to complement them). If none of this is to your tastes, please don't read on.

I do not own Hetalia, Gakuen Hetalia, or any of the canon characters. This is a non-profit story written entirely for entertainment purposes.

Without further ado, please enjoy!

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Here I Stand

_'There is an unseen life that dreams us. It knows our true direction and destiny. We can trust ourselves more than we realise and we need have no fear of change.' -John O'Donohue._

_**I.**_

It had become a mystery as to where the past few years of Konstantin Asenov's life had gone. He often asked himself if he'd been dreaming the entire time; it certainly felt strange, especially now. Even stranger, he thought, because his current situation was the result of him making an impulsive, yet life-changing decision three years beforehand... Maybe it was an inane thought, maybe he was thinking too hard about it, because he was quite sure that normal fourteen-year-old boys didn't usually over think their past actions. But when he reminded himself that if that one thing hadn't have happened, he wouldn't have been where he was then and there, the thought was somewhat scary.

Konstantin wasn't sure he believed in fate, but he wasn't sure that pure coincidence was enough to explain his situation, either.

He had been almost eleven in the March of 2033 (1) when he'd run away from the cramped and crumbling monastic orphanage, tucked away in a mountainous region of southern Bulgaria. He'd spent his life up until then confined within its walls. The Orthodox nuns who had raised him there hadn't been particularly affectionate towards him, not that he could have expected any kind of special treatment, being one of over sixty children. He'd also distanced himself from the other orphans – not really by fault of his own, or so he felt... He'd never seemed to have fit in with them, and had found himself involved in fights with others, more often than not. Shortly before he'd left, he'd pushed himself to enter a card game against one of the older boys (gambling had often gone on at the orphanage, behind the nuns' backs, of course), and had come away from it with a good amount of leva (by young boys' standards) in his pocket (2). The older boy had promptly called him out for cheating, backhanded him across the face, and sent Konstantin into an abrupt fit of rage.

This was around the time he had started to notice things were becoming odd. Whereas he'd been able to hold his own brawling against the other children, at that time, he'd ended up going for the older boy's throat in retaliation to the hard slap on the cheek. Not really realising the consequences whilst in such a state, he'd later been punished to kneel on a block of ice throughout hymn practice and was made to go without dinner for the rest of the week. That had been the last time he'd laid a finger on anyone. Luckily, though, he'd been able to keep the money.

And it was that money that had helped him get away from the orphanage in the first place. It had been an impulsive decision, but Konstantin was impulsive boy by nature and never really thought things through properly before going ahead with them. There had been a hole in one of the stone walls forming the circumference of the monastery grounds; he'd used this to sneak out plenty of times beforehand. The only difference was, that day, after he'd made his way across the grounds early in the morning, to where a cluster of shrubberies had been placed to apparently prevent any children from escaping (not that they had worked, clearly), he'd never returned.

He'd stashed away enough leva to buy a bus ticket from the nearby town towards Grad Sofiya. He remembered how uneasy he'd been at the time, constantly on edge and wondering if the nuns had yet to notice his disappearance, or had yet to commence a search for him. It seemed like he'd avoided pursuit, but when he eventually arrived in the capital city, with nothing but a small, worn out trunk he'd lugged along with his few belongings inside, he realised how rash and stupid the decision had been... He was a young boy, now miles and miles away from the place that he supposed was his home, with no money left in his pocket, alone in a city that proved to be a culture shock for him – it was vastly different from the small, secluded world in the mountains. Sure, he'd expected the towering buildings and the chaotic traffic and the lingering scent of smog, but being there was different from just hearing or reading about it.

He wondered if he should give in, and somehow find a way back to the orphanage; perhaps they'd have sent out a police search or something... But then he remembered even though Grad Sofiya was big and noisy and cold and he didn't know anyone, he didn't really want to go back to the orphanage, either. Perhaps that was the main reason he'd wanted to come, but perhaps he also he felt like it was a good place to start looking for some answers to questions the nuns had never given him... Like, who his parents were, or why they weren't with him any more... They'd always been suspiciously hushed about the matter, and yet, none of the other children were faced with a similar secrecy. It was frustrating, so frustrating apparently that the only choice he'd thought up was to to go to Grad Sofiya and start looking for answers himself... Which, given that he had no idea where to start looking, seemed like a rather bad idea. A long while past midday, he'd sat himself down on his trunk in the doorway of a closed shop front, his arms wrapped around his knees, cold and hungry and feeling pretty damn sorry for himself...

...And _that_ was when 'fate' came into play.

There had been a girl; a girl whose face he wouldn't be able to recall unless he saw it again. He couldn't have placed her at being any more than a few years older than him, and he later found out that he'd been right about that estimation. She'd sat down next to him and asked him what was wrong, and though with a slight reluctance, he'd told her everything. And then she told him she'd been running away at the time as well, though she hadn't given a reason for it. Konstantin was more concerned about how odd it was that he could hold a conversation with her; he didn't usually get along with other children. After the pleasant, albeit strange, hour he'd spent telling her what was practically his life story, about how he'd been told he was talented, but distant; about how his birth and how his separation from his parents had been kept secret, she'd come to a conclusion, apparently picking up on the oddity of it all, herself.

"I think you're one of us."

That was perhaps the very moment in time when Konstantin Asenov's life had completely changed, whether it be through fate, or coincidence, or even just through sheer luck.

It soon became clear who she'd been running from, when a group of men in black suits had rounded on them. He remembered what happened as clearly as if it had been yesterday; the girl had begun to exclaim in English, whilst tugging on Konstantin's arm to pull him to his feet, "He's like me! He's one of us!"

'One of us'. He'd never really been included in anything referred to as 'us' before that moment. From there, he'd been taken along with the girl and the black suits, eventually finding himself in the care of the authorities and being thoroughly interrogated on the few things he actually did know about his origins. He was locked away under supervision in a hotel room for a few days, and told the orphanage he'd run away from had been informed of his situation. He didn't see the girl again after their initial meeting. He'd never even known her name.

"You're special." One of the men had said; there had been so many men, some in black suits, some in grey or brown suits, some in lab coats, but there'd never been any that Konstantin could remember specifically. But thinking back, he figured it was a lab coat, because he vaguely recalled the conversation before being held shortly before the man had hooked his head up to wires and told him it was necessary to examine his brainwaves. "You might not have ever thought it, but you are, believe me." The one thing Konstantin did recall was that anyone who had said anything along those lines to him had sounded far more enthusiastic about it than he himself had felt.

It had been a time of confusion, a time when he was never sure what was going to happen to him, and a time when he'd been left just as much in the dark about himself as he was at the orphanage. After these strange few days had passed, he'd promptly been put in the care of an interior minister in the Bulgarian parliament, one who lived barely a stone's throw from the centre of the capital. The fact that he'd been placed in foster care was essentially the start of things looking up – the minister had a nice house, and Konstantin had been given his own room (a far cry from the sardine tin that had been his dormitory at the orphanage), as well as home-schooling upon the request of the officials that had taken him in, for the few years that followed (which he much preferred to the public schooling in the nearby town to the orphanage where he'd taught himself better English by reading imported newspapers than the present teacher had done). The only real downside was that the authorities, which revealed themselves at that point to be working for the United Nations, did make bi-annual visits, to 'check his progress', as they had put it.

"Do you feel like you're any physically stronger than the last time we saw you? Any faster? Are you getting better at English? Mathematics?" These were among the questions pressed at these visits. Konstantin couldn't really answer them, though. He never saw the progress he'd apparently undergone, and the minister would speak in detail to the U.N. officials and tell them how good Konstantin was at sports (which, he supposed, to be fair, was true enough), and how his English was better than the minister's own.

But what was so special about that? It wasn't until the final visit, in the April of 2036, when he'd found out just what the past few years of his life had been all about. The United Nations had, eleven years before, created the 'Academy', as they had called it, a secretive boarding school designed to cultivate genius minds to the point in which a delegate, one of whom was selected to attend and represent their home country, surpassed the normal levels of human intelligence, or speed, or strength, or in some cases, a mix of two or of all three. So much so, that they were considered _superhuman_.

That revelation came as somewhat of a shock, because looking in the mirror, Konstantin only ever saw a plain-looking boy; dark-haired, grey-eyed and olive-skinned. What was so superhuman about that? But the criteria went much further than just physical and mental strengths, as he soon found out.

April being the month of showers, it was raining the day he first set foot on Pangaea, surrounded by men in black suits, resembling those he'd encountered three years before, who were to escort him the entire way to the Academy from the boat he'd just stepped off. Pangaea was the name of the island the Academy was situated on, named appropriately, being of international property. The only way to get there, or indeed leave, was by boat; there was a small dock attached to Pangaea's only town, a very small, cleanly constructed seafront location (which he'd been informed was run by volunteers), built and inhabited with the purpose of supporting the Academy. The Academy itself, however, was administrated internally by other delegates; there were cases where students had gone on to become teachers and kept their country's name as their title there – or so he'd been told.

None of the suits spoke, and Konstantin found that, for one, a little harrowing. He also wondered why they were all wearing sunglasses when it was raining (he thought it pointless, for one, and probably of a hindrance as well), but this was a question his impulsive nature decided not to make him blurt out loud; rather, he kept it to himself – the men were silent, and so he remained the same.

A short walk through to the other side of the town, surrounded all the while by the guards, brought him to a car he was promptly instructed to sit in the centre of the back seat of. Which was by no means comfortable; as his adoptive father, the minister, would have put it, it would've been like sitting on a train going through Grad Sofiya at rush hour, because two of the largest suited men, one of which had to have been at least twice Konstantin's height and build – and Konstantin was, by no means, a short fourteen-year-old – sat themselves at either side of him. Whilst trying not to wriggle about and remain breathing at the same time, he couldn't help but wonder, with great anticipation, and with a certain sense of fear, what was waiting for him at that Academy he'd been told was going to serve as his home for the next few years of his life.

The drive took ten minutes at most (in reality, of course, because it seemed so much longer with Konstantin and all of the men surrounding him, the driver included, in complete silence, the only noise being the engine of the car, the windscreen wipers squeaking actively from side-to-side and the rain pitter-pattering down). Even though the weather obscured the visibility, it was easy to see that the Academy had been shrouded in the middle of a large, forest, unable to be seen from the coastline, and so the sudden appearance of the tall white walls that contrasted greatly with the thick, dark, wooded area, was quite a surprise. Not that it really sunk in; Konstantin had mentally prepared himself throughout the entire journey up until that point to not be taken aback by anything. He was pretty sure that if he hadn't, he would have been gaping like a fish out of water for the past few days. Still, once he was past the threshold marked by the walls, that wouldn't have helped much. Once inside, he genuinely wouldn't know what to expect. The officials had kept hushed when telling him what little details they would let on. He just kept telling himself he'd find out, soon enough.

The car halted at what appeared to be the gates, though the driver only needed to roll down his window, crane his neck out and nod for the doors to crack open. Once the window was back up, he continued onwards. It wasn't until the long driveway had been cleared that the white brick, flat-roofed buildings that made up the Academy itself came into view. Still, with the bad weather, it was hard to get a good look at them. Only when the car had pulled up at what must have been the front building and Konstantin had been all but forced out of the car again did he get a better view. He stared, in fact, for quite a few moments, up towards the very top of the large building; it had to have been three, maybe four stories tall, and vastly wide... Even in Grad Sofiya, which was easily the biggest and most crowded place he knew of, buildings of this grandeur would have stood out from the rest.

There was a crunch on the pebbledash of the driveway. Konstantin turned around to see one of the guards had left his suitcase by his feet. The men were settling themselves wordlessly back into the car, not giving him any further instruction. He opened his mouth in surprise, ready to ask what he was supposed to do now, but before any words actually came he realised that the answer to that was fairly obvious. The car's engine fired up again, and soon it had turned and driven back down the driveway, the gates that marked the end of which now hidden behind the lingering, foggy rain.

And so, he was alone. Returning his attention back to the broad stone steps that lead up towards the front doors, he took his luggage in hand and heaved his way up them. The foyer inside, which could be seen through the clear glass windows, looked warm and bright, and seemed inviting compared to the dull atmosphere outside. He tugged one of the tall doors open and stepped inside, his shoes squeaking suddenly on the polished floor.

The interior of the building – or, at least, of the room he'd now found himself in – took him back a couple of years to the one time he'd gone along to a government building with his adoptive father. It was vastly spacious and high ceilinged, and the walls and floors were all a crisp white colour that reflected the pale lighting well... Though, that may well have been a trick of the eyes, due to the contrasting gloomy grey outside. Realising his shoes were making a noise, and also that he didn't really know where to go or what to do now he was inside, he stopped walking. Despite the quietness of the room, it then became apparent to him he wasn't alone.

To his right was a wide desk, positioned underneath a large staircase that curved up and around to what looked to be a balconied landing. Behind the desk was a dark-haired woman wearing white chiffon. She was stooped over, writing, and she didn't seem to have noticed he had come in. At the closest side of the desk to the windows was a small seating area; here sat a boy who must've been the same age as Konstantin, plainly dressed, with a similar colouring to the woman. Like her, he hadn't noticed Konstantin's entrance; he seemed thoroughly absorbed in the book open in his lap.

For a few seconds, Konstantin glanced between the woman and the other boy, waiting for either of them to look up. Upon deciding they weren't going to, he wandered towards the desk, setting his case at his feet.

"Miss?"

The woman peered towards him, a gentle, relaxed smile crossing her face. "Hello, dear. Are you Konstantin?"

Making sure to neither nod or shake his head in response, as he'd been reminded to do before, he told her, straightforward, "Yes."

She lifted her hand to the side, motioning him towards the seating area. "Please take a seat. Someone should be along shortly." Mellowly, and reassuringly, she added, peering over at the boy reading the book, "It's Heracles's first day today, as well."

Konstantin lifted his case again, tugging it over in that direction. He set it down a couple of chairs along from Heracles. Only when he approached did the other boy seem to notice he was there; his head tilted upwards a little, and his eyes slowly panned towards him. There was silence, for a moment; their gazes met, but neither spoke a word until Konstantin had taken a seat as well.

"...Konstantin..." The boy's voice was calm and quiet, much like the woman's.

He hadn't phrased it like a question, more like a pensive statement, but even so, Konstantin couldn't help but look over at the boy again. "Yeah?" He murmured.

"Ah..." Once again, Heracles looked back towards him. "Your name... It's like the emperor's..."

"'The emperor's'?" Konstantin repeated, unsure of what the other had meant. He'd never heard anyone draw a comparison like that before.

Heracles gave a laboured nod of the head. "The Roman emperor, Saint Constantine." He paused again. "I've not heard of anyone with the name, for a while. Where are you from?"

"Bulgaria." Konstantin answered.

The other boy nodded once more, looking thoughtful. "Kostadin (3), then?"

"Er, no." Konstantin slouched his shoulders a bit. "But people make that mistake a lot. I ask people to call me Kosta, it's easier."

"Mnh. Kosta, then." Heracles marked the page of his book and shut it. "I'm Heracles."

"Greek?"

After another nod, another few moments of quiet followed. Struggling to continue the conversation, Konstantin muttered, "How'd you know that about my name, anyway?"

Heracles lifted the book in his hand. "I read a lot." The lettering on the front of the book was in Greek, and so Konstantin didn't know exactly what the book was called, but it looked pretty drab, so he figured it was probably boring. "There has never been a lot else around here for me to do..." Heracles added, leaning back in his seat, his voice sinking into a mumble. "Hmn... But even now, rather than go to classes like everyone else, I think it would be easier just to sleep..."

Once again, Konstantin wasn't exactly sure what he meant, though one thing Heracles had said there did stand out in his mind. "What do you mean by there not being a lot else around here for you to do? Isn't it your first day here, too?"

"My first day as a student, yes." For a moment, the Greek boy turned his head towards the woman at the desk, who was focusing on her work again. "I've lived here with my mother for four years."

Konstantin leaned forward to look towards the woman as well. That was a surprise – he'd been told that almost all of the students that attended the Academy were orphans, like he himself was. But now that Heracles had said that, he realised that both he and his mother looked very similar; he didn't know why he hadn't made the connection before.

Frowning a bit, he lifted his shoulders in a shrug, his gaze falling to the floor. "Must've be nice. I never knew my parents."

"A lot of people say that." Heracles replied, slowly. There wasn't insensitivity in his voice, but it seemed like the topic was something he'd spoken of several times before. There was quiet again, and then he asked, "Do you at least know what happened to them?"

Konstantin sighed. "No. Everyone I asked seemed to avoid the subject."

"My father was killed in a train crash not long after I was born..." Heracles continued, nonchalant. "Everyone seems to have a different story."

"So I heard." Konstantin shrugged a bit again. "Why is that, anyway?"

Heracles shook his head. "No one knows."

Despite the apparent correlation, Konstantin himself couldn't think of a reason as to why the parents of the Academy students were either deceased or estranged. It seemed too convenient (if that was really the right word to use) for every single case to be just coincidence. He also couldn't decide whether Heracles was lucky or not, in that respect – of course, his mother was alive and apparently well, but with both parents of the students usually suffering the same fate as each other, he couldn't help but idly wonder if Heracles was ever worried about his mother because of it. Seeing how laid-back the Greek boy seemed to be, he somehow doubted it; though really, it was difficult to guess at what was going on inside his head.

Loud footsteps broke the quiet, and roused him from his trail of thoughts. He wasn't sure where the steps were coming from, until a man came into view at the bottom of the curved staircase. If Konstantin hadn't already been feeling ill at ease, this man certainly might have given him a reason to. He was exceptionally tall, with long blond hair, but that wasn't the most unique thing about him – rather, the fact that he was adorned in an antique gold armour was. And this armour seemed to be what was making his footsteps ring out louder than they should have. The man glanced over in their direction, his brow furrowed, and then passed the desk towards them. Heracles had also noticed his arrival, but was otherwise indifferent.

"Konstantin Asenov, I take it?" When the man halted, his eyes fixed on Konstantin first, and he spoke in a low, cold voice.

"Yeah?" Konstantin replied, at a loss for anything else to respond with.

The man nodded slowly. "A fine name." He didn't sound very genuine. "But from now on, you will respond to 'Bulgaria' when addressed by a member of staff, or when referred to in the staff's presence by another student. Understood?"

"Not really..." He answered, genuinely not understanding why that was necessary.

This caused the man to glower unpleasantly at him. Regardless, an explanation was given. "It is tradition for a delegate's country name to be used in place of their given name, in that respect." His glower panned towards Heracles, for a moment. "Greece, I've a favour to ask."

"Ah... Yes?" Heracles responded, slowly.

The man extended a closed hand towards Konstantin. After realising he was handing something over to him, Konstantin reached outwards as well. The man then dropped a key into his open palm.

"Show Bulgaria to his dorm room, then show him to the back stage of the auditorium." And with that, without waiting for a response from Heracles, the man turned and walked away, the cloak of his armour sweeping around and away with him.

"Hmn..." Heracles mumbled lightly. "I suppose they'll want to introduce us to the other students in assembly." He glanced towards Konstantin. "We should be quick, then."

Quick didn't seem like something Heracles was capable of, however, when they soon left the foyer and passed through the back doors of the building, out into a quad area. The Greek boy was taking laboured steps, and Konstantin was tugging his case after him, unsure of where exactly it was they were going, and not appreciating that Heracles was leading them both out in the rain at a snail's pace.

Frowning, Konstantin heaved his case upwards, balancing it on top of his head as a makeshift cover, though really, the rain was pelting down so hard that there was little point in doing so. "So, who was that guy, anyway?"

Heracles paused in thought for a second, before answering. "Germania. He's the Vice Principal."

"Weird." Konstantin half-mumbled. "And the armour, what's with that?"

"Academy tradition." Heracles lifted his shoulders in a light shrug. "That's what my mother told me."

Konstantin glanced around the quad for a moment. Save for the rain, like the foyer, it was silent. "This place has weird traditions, then."

"I suppose they're things you get used to..."

Before long, they were thankfully back undercover, inside one of the side buildings off the quad. This building was carpeted, and warmer than the foyer; once inside, Heracles halted, looking towards Konstantin again.

"Your key should have a number..." He said. "I can wait here, if you want to leave your case in your room."

Konstantin lowered his case into one hand, glancing into the other for the tag on the key he'd been given. "105."

"Upstairs."

Indeed, 105 was just a short walk up the nearby stairwell and a few steps down a corridor. Like everywhere else, it seemed, the dorm building was silent; unoccupied, and once he'd opened the door and stepped into room 105, it was much the same. Though unlike the corridor, which was lit, the dorm was dark; though there was a wide window on the opposite wall to the door, there was little light to be let in. The sky outside was grey and cold and miserable, and it was therefore difficult to make out much than the basic outlines of the room. Konstantin stepped inside, taking the key with him, and shut the door, before feeling around for a light switch. After he was successful in finding one, he continued moving his case inside.

There were two beds in the room, one at either side of the window. It wasn't difficult to figure out which was his – both had the exact same bedding, but the one on the right side was made up neatly, with an equally tidy stack of clothing near to the pillow, and a folded piece of paper on top of that. The one on the left, however, was completely dishevelled – it was clear someone had slept there the night before. Additionally, several papers and books lay askew on the floor next to it. Whoever he had the pleasure of sharing the dorm with, they obviously didn't like clearing up after themselves. Or perhaps they'd been in a hurry that morning. Either way, Konstantin did wonder who it was that he'd be sharing the room with.

Leaving his case by the bed on the right, he promptly left the room again, remembering he'd been told to be quick. He locked the door, and jogged back down to where Heracles was waiting.

"Ready?" The Greek boy asked.

"Yeah." He replied, hopping down the last step. As they wandered back towards the building's front doors, he added, "Hey, do they actually clean the rooms here?"

Heracles nodded. "There's housekeepers and a janitor that do that. Why do you ask?"

Konstantin shrugged. "The other guy's bed was a mess." They stepped out into the pouring rain again, and another thought crossed his mind, all of a sudden. "Oh, aren't you staying here too?"

"I've had a room here for a while..." It was difficult to hear Heracles now; his soft voice was almost lose in the sound of the rain.

As he continued to follow alongside the other boy, towards the third building of the quad area, which was directly parallel to the foyer, "So, this really is your home, then?"

"Hmn... For now."

"For now?"

The ground squelched beneath their feet. Yet again, Heracles took another moment to think up a reply, but when they reached their next destination, what he came out with wasn't really a reply at all.

Slowly, the Greek boy turned his head towards him, and asked lightly, "Where do you call home?"

Konstantin found himself unable to answer that.

* * *

Notes:

(1) – Once thing I've notably done different to Corrupt Circle – I've specified the time period in which the fics take place. Corrupt Circle may be edited accordingly, though I've no reason to do so right now.

(2) – Lev (plural, leva) is the currency of Bulgaria at the moment. Though this story is set a couple of decades in the future and Bulgaria is likely to enter the Eurozone soon, I kept the lev as the currency, as personally I don't believe the Eurozone is going to last that long.

(3) – Though Konstantin and Kostadin are both Bulgarian variants of the name Constantine, Kostadin is more regularly used in the country, hence why the regional diminutive is 'Kosta'. Though, it's a little too late for me to change the full name, now.

Reviews are love, feedback is appreciated and the next part will probably be up soon. Thanks for reading!

_-Lusky._


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